Freeh Report's flaws obscure Penn State truth

I’m a proud Penn State graduate and support the university and Joe Paterno. While it may be an unpopular position, it in no way equates to supporting child molesters. Those of us who support Joe Paterno do not support pedophiles and are sickened like everyone else at [Jerry] Sandusky’s crimes. We do ask the truth be investigated and reported so this doesn’t happen again.

The Freeh Report came out July 2012 with the goal of determining the university’s role related to Sandusky’s crimes. Had [former FBI Director] Louis Freeh presented factual evidence supporting the involvement of Joe Paterno in allowing, covering up or condoning the heinous crimes as he claims, we’d all agree. His report, though, is a series of unsupported findings and innuendo.

In contrast, the Paterno Report (www.paterno.com) offers facts and experts to dispute much of the Freeh Report and its methodology. The Paterno Report further provides a context of what happened and most importantly makes recommendations to prevent it from happening again. Read Jim Clemente’s Report – he’s an FBI pedophile profiler. He explains why a 75-year-old football coach (Paterno) – or anyone else – wasn’t able to see Sandusky for what he was. Child-abuse case workers and law enforcement professionals overlooked far more evidence than Paterno ever had available. The anger should be directed at those “professionals.”

Getting the truth out has been challenging. Sports Illustrated started by wrongly calling victim number one’s high school coach a “hero” while the victim and his mother now blame that coach. It later put Paterno on its cover and included four other pictures of Paterno in its 14-page Sandusky story, yet no pictures of Sandusky. ESPN’s coverage has been as bad or worse; I rarely watch without hearing a glaring misstatement of fact. This type of coverage led 45 percent of Americans to mistakenly think Joe Paterno might have been a child molester.

The media accepts Freeh’s Report at face value despite numerous issues and the NCAA used it to hand down unprecedented penalties without an unprecedented review. Here are five sites that provide real facts:

No credibility: Freeh lacked subpoena power, used anonymous sources and didn’t interview key parties. Moreover, his report had an errata list of errors found after the report “went to press.” Freeh stands by his report, yet more errors are revealed each day without the errata being updated. Freeh offers no gray area, ascribes motives to people he never interviewed or met and ignores past actions.